The Local History

by Logan Camporeale

Page 2 of 4

“Baby Face” Bobby Landis

September 17, 2018 / / 1 Comment

-Bobby Landis killed a cop, an inmate, and attempted multiple prison escapes.

Bobby Landis was a scoundrel. Before he set foot in Spokane at sixteen years of age, he was an accomplished thief, who had shot and nearly killed a druggist. His crimes had earned him a fourteen month stay at a reformatory for young boys, and when released he violated the terms of his parole. This was just the prologue of Landis’ wrap sheet, once he arrived in the Inland Northwest he became an infamous criminal and an uncontrollable prisoner.

Detective Roy Fordyce, Image Courtesy of Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

On November 13, 1929, Spokane Police Detectives witnessed two boys buying a handgun from a pawn shop on West Main Avenue. The detectives, Roy Fordyce and George Bradley, confronted the suspicious pair as they left the shop. The detectives questioned the boys and, after learning they were staying across the street at the dodgy Spokoma Hotel, asked to search their room. The boys agreed and the group headed up to the third floor of the building. It is unclear exactly what transpired after they entered the room, but moments later the unmistakable sound of gunshots poured from the hotel.

The Daily Tribune, 11/23/1929, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin

When the firing came to a stop, the boys were apprehended but both officers had been shot, and Detective Roy Fordyce lay dead on the floor. The suspects were arrested and one of the boys, “Baby Face” Bobby Landis, took responsibility for the murder and confessed to shooting his weapon first. After a dramatic trial, the jury convicted Landis of murder of a police officer. The young murderer was spared the death penalty, in part due to his age and his questionable mental stability, and he was sentenced to life in prison at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington.

Landis took the life sentence in stride. Less than a year after he arrived, he made his first escape attempt. The convict made it over the first prison wall but he gave up when guards started shooting at him. Landis was not discouraged though. Eighteen months later, he sprinted across the yard and pole-vaulted over the west prison wall. This time he made it out, but he was recaptured later that day and returned to the prison. In another daring escape attempt, Landis, with a group of fellow inmates, hijacked a prison truck and led guards on a chase through downtown Walla Walla ending in a gunfight that left Landis wounded.

Before he faded from the public eye, Landis added one more dark line to his already extensive wrap sheet. He and another prisoner from Spokane County, Joe McWilliams, had been bumping heads. At some point, Landis had enough of McWilliams antics. One morning, while the two were in the exercise area together, Landis drew a handmade knife and stabbed McWilliams twice, once in the stomach and again in the chest. McWilliams spent the next three months in the prison hospital before succumbing to his wounds. He was not tried for the crime, but “Baby Face” Bobby Landis had killed again.

In just over three years at the penitentiary, Landis nearly escaped three times and killed a fellow inmate. But, despite his turbulent start, the convict settled in to prison life and never committed another major violation. Although he was handed a life sentence, after serving nearly twenty-two years Robert Landis was paroled from the penitentiary in 1951. “One of the prison’s all-time worst headaches had,” according to the Spokesman-Review, “mellowed and matured with manhood.”

This article was originally published in Nostalgia Magazine as part of my bi-monthly column “Heroes and Scoundrels.”

Francis Cook: The Father of (Mt.) Spokane and an Early Spokane Booster

July 11, 2018 / / 2 Comments

-Francis Cook’s legacy is evident in green space sprinkled across Spokane County.

On an early summer morning in August 1912, sixty-one year old Francis H. Cook climbed into an open roof automobile alongside some of the most important people in Spokane and Washington State. The caravan of finely dressed dignitaries included W. J. Hindley, Mayor of Spokane, Marguerite Motie, the first Miss Spokane, and Marion E. Hay, Governor of Washington State. The group, joyfully waving green and yellow pennants, headed northeast to put a capstone on one of Cook’s most important accomplishments, a freshly graded road to a newly accessible recreation paradise atop the tallest mountain in Spokane County.

Francis Cook and dignitaries in a procession of automobiles on Riverside Avenue before embarking on their journey to rename Mt. Spokane on August 23, 1912. Image Courtesy of Washington State Archives, Digital Archives

Francis Cook came to Spokane in 1879 when only about 300 white people called the city home. He started the region’s first newspaper, The Spokan Times, and he was one of the city’s first and most effective boosters. Early editions of his newspaper encouraged readers to share the paper with friends and family encouraging them to settle in the “Wonderful Spokan Country.” His paper included a regular column,

“How to Reach this Country,” which provided detailed instructions and approximate costs to arrange transportation to Spokane. His newspaper was a bullhorn featuring a regular sales pitch for the City of Spokane.

Cook did more than beg people to move to Spokane; he helped develop the city. In 1888, he started the city’s first interurban railroad that connected Downtown Spokane with the South Hill. The steam powered train provided easy transportation to and from Cook’s newly planned neighborhood, the Montrose Addition, which later became the Manito neighborhood and park. In far north Spokane, he developed the area that became the Wandermere Golf Course and neighborhood. Cook’s efforts paid off as he watched the City of Spokane grow from a few dozen pioneer families to over 100,000 residents.

Spokane dignitaries raise the United States and Spokane flags at the top of Mt. Spokane in 1912. Mt. Spokane was renamed on this occasion. It was previously called Mt. Baldy or Mt. Carlton, and not surprisingly, its renaming was met with some resistance at the time. According to the Spokane Tribe, the original name for the mountain is “scq'wulsm,” referring to a place with dried flowers and leaves. Photo courtesy of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (L96-39.49).

Although his life was not without speed bumps, in August of 1912, when he departed with the automobile procession of dignitaries to christen his most recent project, his life accomplishments were realized and recognized. When they reached the top of his new road, which the Spokane Daily Chronicle lauded as “the longest auto grade in the world,” a ceremony was conducted where the United States flag and Spokane’s municipal flag were staked at the summit. Miss Spokane addressed the group, “You, our mountain, have been a true friend to Spokane. Our act this day cannot be more than a weak recognition of our love for you. You shall have the best we have to give—our name itself. I christen thee Beautiful Mount Spokane.” After years of hard manual labor building the road with his son, and after decades of boosting Spokane’s image, Cook was recognized for his work and the mountain was named after the project he cared most deeply about, the development of the City of Spokane.

 

This article was originally published in Nostalgia Magazine as part of my bi-monthly column "Heroes and Scoundrels."

Spokanite

March 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

What do you call someone from Spokane? A Spokanite, of course.

Words like Spokanite and Seattleite are called demonyms. They are convenient descriptors that are often touted with a sense of pride. Spokanite has been widely used to identify residents of the city for over 130 years, since before Washington became a state and even before the "Falls" was dropped from the city's name. A search of newspaper databases and Google Books returned an abundance of hits for Spokanite with the first coming from the 1880s. A couple of the earliest occurrences stood out.

The Washington Standard, November 26, 1886

The Washington Standard was one of the first newspapers to publish the word Spokanite. On November 26, 1886, the newspaper reported that the city of Spokane Falls had won back the county seat of Spokane County, after having it stolen away just six years earlier. The short, sixty-three word article recounts a defining moment in the history of the county and purposefully uses demonyms to differentiate the two parties involved: Cheneyites and Spokanites.

Patent Image of Boyle's Saluting Device

The earliest occurrence of Spokanite on Google Books is from ten years later. The American Stationer, a magazine focused on the stationary and “fancy goods” businesses, used the word in March of 1896. The publication ran a feature about a peculiar invention from a Spokane man named James Boyle, whom they identified as a Spokanite. The invention, a “Saluting Device,” allowed a hat-wearer to automatically tip their hat in salute by simply bowing their head. At the turn of the century, it was expected for men to tip their hat as a sign of respect. According to the article, this device was “intended to relieve the wearer from the labor of lifting his hat.” Boyle received a patent for the invention but, unlike the word Spokanite, his Saluting Device did not catch on.

The Carl Maxey Bridge

March 9, 2018 / / 2 Comments

This was a letter to the editor of the Spokesman-Review on March 8, 2018. The letter was published on March 20, 2018.

 

Spokane is building a bridge that connects East Central with the University District. The names under consideration range from uncreative to downright boring, so I would like to offer another suggestion: Carl Maxey Bridge.

In the first half of the 20th century, when blacks moved to Spokane, they were steered to East Central—the black neighborhood.

Carl Maxey

It was Carl Maxey, more than any other single person, who desegregated Spokane. Despite growing up in an orphanage, Maxey attended Gonzaga where he graduated with a law degree. As Spokane’s first black attorney, Maxey was eager to defend those impacted by racist policies and to challenge the structures that perpetrated them.

He took on the school district for refusing to hire black teachers, and he won. He took on barber shops that would not serve black customers, and he won. He took on important social clubs that denied blacks membership, and he won. He took on racist housing policies that had segregated Spokane, and he won.

The New York Times credited Maxey with “virtually singlehandedly desegregating much of the inland Northwest.” Although he did not work alone, this claim is hardly an overstatement.

The new bridge should be named Carl Maxey Bridge.

Thanksgiving in Spokane: A Tradition of Volunteerism

November 22, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Volunteers will make 400 happy tomorrow

Tom’s Turkey Drive has been feeding Spokane’s less fortunate for the past seventeen Thanksgiving holidays. The food drive, a collaborative community effort, collected and distributed over 11,000 Thanksgiving meals in 2016. Countless business and individuals donated to the cause and over 7,000 volunteers gave their time. Participating in Tom’s Turkey Drive is a tradition for Spokanites, a tradition building on over 110 years of charity and volunteerism surrounding Turkey Day.  

Feeding the poor on Thanksgiving has been an annual tradition in Spokane since it’s early years. "The newsboys, messenger boys, poor women and children of the city, will eat turkey and cranberry sauce tomorrow,” The Spokane Press proclaimed in late November 1904. The Volunteers of America, a national organization with a Spokane chapter, took on the huge task of feeding the city’s needy. A large group of volunteers prepared endless stacks of meals, set tables and chairs in the banquet room of city hall, and fed nearly a thousand people a festive Thanksgiving dinner—and they did it every year.

Maud Booth, along with her husband, founded the Volunteers of America in 1896. The Spokane chapter, one of the first, opened that same year.

Much as it is today, the effort was a collaborative one. Local markets and stores donated meat, and the organizers encouraged community members to contribute. But not everyone was generous, and The Spokane Press, a worker’s newspaper, was critical of the greedy: “The cost of feeding 1000 poor will not exceed what one rich man of Spokane would expend in entertaining 50 of his friends at his house. Yet the rich man sits in his elegant home, bounteously provided for amid magnificent surroundings, and gives no thought to his less fortunate fellow man.”

Although the paper was critical of the overindulged, it also engaged in poor shaming. The paper referred to the poor as “street urchins,” a “hungry mob,” and the “lowliest walks of life.” The paper and it’s readership hated bosses and big business owners, but it also disdained folks surviving on the backs of donors.

The newspaper, however, is clear about its stance on those that volunteer:

"The Volunteers do it lovingly, cheerfully and without thanks in many cases. The busy world looks on, remarks it is a good thing, but lend no helping hand.
God Bless The Volunteers.
I wish that there were more of them.”

Let me take this opportunity to thank all of the wonderful volunteers with whom I have worked. You make the world a better place.





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